Country and western singer-songwriter who saw his major success in the ’70s and ’80s.
Born into a musical family in Bastrop, Louisiana, young John was playing the guitar at the age of six and appeared on a radio program at the age of seven. The Ryles Family Singers were radio regulars and broke out of the Bayou to join the Cowtown Hoedown in Fort Worth, Texas, and eventually the Big D Jamboree over in Dallas.
The Ryles emigrated to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1965 and John broke away from the pack, flying solo at the age of fourteen. He pounded the pavement, laying down demo tapes, working the club circuit, and even learning the trade of recording engineer. Three years later, he would catch his first break. He recorded a song “Kay” in 1968, under the moniker of John Wesley I, giving him his first top-ten hit on the Billboard Country chart.
His career didn’t exactly take off. He recorded two albums in 1969 that didn’t do much. Top-twenty success returned for him in the form of “I’ve Just Been Wasting My Time” in 1970. A year later, he would revisit the top forty with a song called “Reconsider Me”. These last two were ironically titled as for whatever reason John dropped out of the recording industry and went back to the clubs.
He made a comeback of sorts with a pair of meager chart successes in 1976. It took a lot of airplay but eventually “Fool” went top twenty in 1977, a painstaking four months after its intial release. His follow-up, “Lifetime Thing”, would crack the top five and prove to be his biggest hit, although he continued to chart in the ’80s.
All told, John Wesley Ryles would end 1988 having recorded at least twenty hits in twenty years. Although stardom eluded him, John did not fade away into obscurity. In the last twenty years, he has found steady employ as a background vocalist for almost everyone who is anyone in the country music business, including John Anderson, Terri Clark, Reba McEntire, John Michael Montgomery, Dolly Parton, and Gene Watson.
In 2005, he released a collaborative effort with fellow artists Tim Buppert and Dana Hunt entitled Josh Vogel’s Country Blues.
John Wesley Ryles recordings
Liberated Woman (Wayne Carson)
You Are Always On My Mind (Wayne Carson/John Christopher/Mark James)
Sources:
1. http://music.aol.com/artist/john-wesley-ryles/32717/biography
2. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_m/103-0590592-7817414?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Dmusic-artist&field-keywords=John+Wesley+Ryles&Go.x=13&Go.y=7
3. http://www.xtrememusician.com/info/artists/profiles/5060.html
4. http://www.amazon.com
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6. http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/1097503/a/John+Michael+Montgomery.htm
7. http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/1097349/a/Kickin’+It+Up.htm
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12. http://www.dollyon-line.com/archives/albums/treas/tr_ss.shtml